Health care on Democrats’ minds but not in Biden’s Iowa remarks

Dubuque, Ia. — There was an elephant in the room today, as Vice President Joe Biden continued a two-day campaign tour in eastern Iowa.

It wasn’t a stray Republican who wandered into Dubuque’s Grand River Center by mistake, although there may have been a few.

The loquacious vice president aimed his remarks, as he did Tuesday, at Republican Mitt Romney and claims he profited from moving jobs out of the country. The topic strayed, occasionally, touching social and foreign policy.

One place it never touched, however, was the looming decision of the U.S. Supreme Court on the Affordable Care Act. The decision, which could strike down all or part of the 2010 law, is expected by the end of the week.

Health care was mentioned a few times, although not by Biden. The battle to reform health care was included in a documentary video the crowd saw before the rally.

A local Obama campaign volunteer who spoke before Biden, Carolyn Koppes, raised the importance of the health reform law to her family. “My second son, who has a pre-existing medical condition, we will be able to look forward to getting health insurance in 2014,” she said. “… And what we really know is, that means Obama cares.”

Although the ruling didn’t make it into Biden’s speech today, it was on the minds of some of the people in the audience.

John Decker of Sherrill, a retired law professor who attended Biden’s event in Dubuque, said he’s very concerned about the potential for the individual insurance mandate, and perhaps more of the law, to be struck down. “I think it’s going to be a very, very, very close call,” he said.

“If it isn’t (upheld), I think there’s going to be a lot of unhappy people over the long haul,” Decker said, and it raises questions about how to insure people with pre-existing conditions or young adults now allowed to stay on parents’ policies.

Patricia Foster of Dubuque said she has good insurance now, but many people don’t. “If the law gets struck down, I don’t think it just hurts Obama and Biden. I think it hurts all of us,” she said.

Foster also worries about what would happen if she should leave her job someday. “There’s always a possibility of being downsized or something like that,” she said.

I can understand if Biden was reluctant to publicly speculate on the court action. The potential ramifications of the ruling aren’t the feel-good fodder of a campaign rally. And it’s not like the Obama campaign has been silent about the health-care law. It has been working to highlight the more popular provisions of the health-care reform. (By the way, even the Obama campaign called it Obamacare in a recent press release).

But even if the law is upheld, Obama and Biden still have a significant job to do to explain to voters in Iowa why the bill makes financial sense in light of the budget deficit and debt. The vast majority of Iowans already have health insurance, but they are also worried about the mounting debt.